Gilligan’s Island Could Have Had A Different Setting If CBS Executives Got Their Way

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For a show that became such a big pop cultural hit, “Gilligan’s Island” had a somewhat fraught history. For one thing, the pilot episode didn’t even air after CBS decided Ginger, Mary Ann, and the Professor needed to be recast. That particular network interference turned out to be for the best, however, as Tina Louise, Dawn Wells (who passed away in 2020), and Russell Johnson proved to be much better suited to their characters than their predecessors. Removing the island from a show called “Gilligan’s Island,” on the other hand, has to be one of the most misguided network suggestions in TV history.

When creator Sherwood Schwartz first pitched his idea for the beloved sitcom, it wasn’t exactly met with resounding enthusiasm. Even the writer’s agent wasn’t convinced, telling his client, “Who the hell is gonna watch the same g**damn seven people on the same g**damn island every week?” as Schwartz recalled” 

But the island wasn’t really the point of the show. Instead, as Schwartz explained to the Archive of American Television, it was much more about seemingly disparate and mismatched people being placed in a situation where they were forced to interact and get along. “Everybody is a human being,” he said, “and that’s at the basis of most of my thinking. All my shows, actually. How do people learn to get along with each other?” With that in mind, Schwartz conceived of his island setting as a way of forcing his characters from various backgrounds into a shared social situation.

But it seems CBS was initially unconvinced. In his 2011 book “Inside Gilligan’s Island: From Creation to Syndication,” Schwartz recounted the trouble he had after it became clear that the network’s television president, James T. Aubrey, wasn’t a fan of the show’s premise.

In “Inside Gilligan’s Island,” Sherwood Schwartz recounts attending a meeting with James T. Aubrey, CBS President Frank Stanton, and Board Chairman William S. Paley. According to the “Gilligan’s Island” creator, despite being surrounded by two of the most influential people at CBS, Aubrey spent much of his time throwing paper airplanes around the office as if he could act however he pleased with impunity. Why? Well, as Schwartz saw it, it was all a way to convey just how much he disliked the “Gilligan’s Island” premise.

“Was Mr. Aubrey trying to tell me something?” he wrote. “Although this was Mr. Paley and Dr. Stanton’s first exposure to the concept of ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ Mr. Aubrey and I had discussed the show many times. And we had a major disagreement.” That disagreement came down to the fact that, as Schwartz remembered it, Aubrey wanted the show to break out from the island that Schwartz had so carefully envisioned as a venue for bridging the divide between characters. “Mr. Aubrey loved the idea of Gilligan, the Skipper, and their little charter boat,” he continued, “but he wanted me to call the series ‘Gilligan’s Travels.'”

In Schwartz’s recollection, Aubrey’s version of the show would have begun with an episode set on the titular isle, but in succeeding episodes, “Gilligan, the Skipper, and the rebuilt S.S. Minnow would take other passengers on other trips to other places.” This travelogue version of the sitcom might well have seemed to Aubrey like it had more mass appeal, but it directly undermined its creator’s intent, and Schwartz stood firm.

A sitcom about characters from different social backgrounds forming relationships was more than just light comedy to Sherwood Schwartz. As the show creator said during his Archive of American Television interview, “They had to get along with each other. That was the idea of the show, and it’s the most important idea in the world today. For people who toss away the show as just a silly broad comedy, it’s deeper than that.” As such, the writer wasn’t about to let anyone, including the CBS Television president, upend the entire premise of “Gilligan’s Island.” 

As Schwartz recalled in his book, James T. Aubrey’s opinion was that the desert island premise “would need an enormous amount of explanation each week, expository scenes to explain why this group of people was marooned on the island.” He continued, “Exposition is the most deadly obstacle to entertainment, whether it’s a comedy show or a dramatic show.” But when you’ve got one of the best TV theme songs of all time, you don’t need exposition, and it was this that ultimately allowed Schwartz to keep his version of the sitcom.

To alleviate Aubrey’s concern about the exposition, Schwartz reassured him that the show’s theme song would be all viewers needed to get their bearings. “There would be no need for exposition,” he wrote. “Because the opening song would tell the story in an entertaining way.” But as Schwartz went on to note, in 1963, “few TV themes had ever been used for this purpose.” Still, Aubrey was a fan of the Gilligan and Skipper characters, which likely played into his eventual decision to let “Gilligan’s Island” be “Gilligan’s Island.”